Flipped Learning Activity: The Only Story

This worksheet is assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad to guide our learning about Julian Barnes' novel, The Only Story.  

1.Video Summaries: For each video, write a brief summary (approximately

150-200 words) outlining the key points discussed in it.

Video 1: Introduction | Character | Plot Summary

 This video introduces Julian Barnes' 2018 novel The Only Story, categorising it as a "memory novel" that explores the life-defining love affair of the protagonist, Paul Roberts. The narrative is non-linear, featuring significant "jumps" in time as an older Paul (around age 70) looks back 50 years to his youth. The story focuses on 19-year-old Paul's unconventional relationship with Susan Macleod, a 48-year-old married woman with two daughters older than Paul. The sources suggest the novel is not a traditional romance but a philosophical reflection on responsibility, suffering, and the realistic "shredding" of love’s glamour. The video also highlights the novel’s narrative complexity, noting how it merges first, second, and third-person perspectives to study the connection between theme and character. Key examples include the setting of 1960s London suburbs and the presence of Susan's husband, Gordon, whose character introduces complexities of domestic violence and social class conflict. The lecturer notes that understanding this text often requires referencing Barnes’ earlier work, The Sense of an Ending.

Video 2: Joan | Character Study

 The second video provides a character study of Joan, the sister of Susan’s first love, Gerald. Joan serves as a counterpoint to Susan; while Susan’s life is marked by a series of tragic "damages"—including her affair with Paul and subsequent alcoholism—Joan manages to save herself from complete emotional destruction. The lecturer interprets Joan’s life through the symbolism of her pet dogs, such as Sybil, whose name references a mythical figure who craved death. This relates to the "curse" of immortality and the idea that death can be a blissful release from a shattered life. Joan’s coping mechanisms include gin, cigarettes, and crosswords, representing a cynical but survivalist approach to existence. A significant interpretation presented is that pets may be "better" love objects than humans because they are not demanding and do not reflect one’s own internal gaps or "damages" back at them. Through Paul’s memory, Joan is depicted as a "bulky" woman who has moved beyond social hypocrisy, using bad language and honesty as she lives a solitary life with her "yappers".

Video 3: Memory Novel | Memory, History, and Morality

This video examines The Only Story as a meditation on the imperfections and unreliability of memory. The lecturer argues that memory is a form of "personal history" that individuals frequently colour with lies to protect themselves or provide excuses for their actions. Drawing on the film Memento, the video suggests that our sense of moral responsibility is rooted in memory; if we "record" our history wrongly, we lose the ability to feel true remorse. Key examples from the novel include Paul's recollections of his friend Eric being attacked at a fair, which serves as a prompt for Paul to reflect on his own cowardice. Another example is the reference to Max Verstappen, a 19-year-old Formula One racer, used to illustrate the difference between "youthful fearlessness" and the true courage required to take responsibility in later life. Ultimately, the video argues that memory "prioritises" happy thoughts first, only allowing the "residue" of ugliness and traumatic truths to float to the surface as one digs deeper into the past.

Video 4: Narrative Pattern 

This discussion focuses on the postmodern narrative techniques Barnes employs, specifically the shifting of narrative voices. The novel starts with a classical definition of a novel from Samuel Johnson as a "small tale... of love" and uses direct address to the reader. However, the lecturer argues that Paul is an unreliable narrator because he constantly contradicts himself and breaks the "vantage point" of the traditional elder storyteller. The shift from first person in Part One to third person in Part Three is interpreted as Paul’s dissociation from his own self and his "only story" as he becomes overwhelmed by guilt and remorse. The lecturer uses the metaphor of "warp and weft" to describe how the story is interwoven with philosophical brooding. An important example cited is the book’s opening question regarding whether one would rather "love the more and suffer the more," which sets the stage for a narrative that explores the "truth" of a story through the lens of its eventual failure and the narrator's emergence as a "defeated being".

Video 5: Question of Responsibility

The fifth video explores the theme of responsibility, specifically how individuals account for the "damages" and tragedies in their lives. Using a "chain of links" metaphor from The Sense of an Ending, the lecturer explains that while we often blame external links—such as Paul blaming Gordon’s domestic violence for Susan’s decline—responsibility is often a complex web. The key argument is that true introspection requires taking the blame on oneself rather than projecting it onto others. Paul initially views Gordon’s guilt as "absolute," but as he ages, he begins to see his own role in the "shattered chain" of Susan’s life. The video points out that Paul’s self-narration is a "self-talk" where he eventually has to confront his own "shittiness"—the fact that his abandonment of Susan contributed to her zombified state in a mental asylum. Specific novel examples include Paul’s memories of Gordon punching him in the library and Paul’s subsequent choice to "run away" rather than protect Susan, highlighting the conflict between being "carefree" and being "careless".

Video 6: Theme of Love | Passion and Suffering 

This video delves into the etymology of "passion," noting its Latin root patio means "to suffer". The central interpretation is that in Barnes’ novel, every love is a potential disaster if one gives themselves over to it "entirely". The lecturer uses Lacanian theory to explain that human "love objects" are inherently problematic because both parties have internal "gaps" and repressed desires that can never be fully satisfied by another person. Key examples include Paul’s "private cinema" of memories, where he recalls Susan at 48 versus her final, zombified state in a mental asylum. The video also discusses the "alcoholic vs. lover" paradox; Paul believes lovers are truth-tellers and alcoholics are liars, but his worldview is shattered when Susan becomes both. Ultimately, the lecturer argues that the novel breaks "meta-narratives" of romantic love, replacing them with a crude reality where love inevitably curdles into pity and anger. The dream sequence of Susan hanging by her wrists from a window is used to illustrate how Paul was eventually "damaged" by the weight of the relationship.

Video 7: Theme of Marriage | Critique of Marriage Institution

 The seventh video critiques the "sham" of the marriage institution as presented in the novel. Barnes is said to portray love and marriage as opposites, with marriage often acting as the "end of love". The lecturer highlights several cynical metaphors for marriage from the text: a "dog kennel" where complacency lives, a "jewelry box" that turns diamonds back into "base metal," and an "unseaworthy boat" that sinks during a crisis. The primary argument is that marriage in the English middle class is built on mediocrity and complacency, where people suffer silently to maintain respectability. Examples include the violent marriage of Gordon and Susan, and Paul’s own relief that Susan never accepted his "doubtful" marriage proposal, which would have prevented him from eventually "handing back the parcel" of her care to her daughters. Joan’s life is also mentioned as an alternative; her choice to live with pets rather than enter a "demanding" human marriage is seen as a more successful, if solitary, path to happiness.

Video 8: Two Ways to Look at Life 

The final video discusses two extreme philosophical viewpoints Paul uses to interpret his life. The first is the "Captain of a paddle steamer" on the Mississippi, representing free will and the power of making choices. the second is the "Bump on a log" drifting in the same river, representing inevitability and a lack of control. The lecturer argues that Paul’s narration oscillates between these two: he uses "free will" to justify his youthful passion for Susan but relies on "inevitability" to explain away his later failures and his abandonment of her. This "self-serving" reordering of life allows the narrator to protect his ego. Specific examples include the "dice rolled out by destiny" that paired Paul and Susan in a tennis match, contrasted with Paul’s later claim that he loved her by choice. The video concludes that these metaphors are essential for understanding how Paul constructs his "only story" to live with the remorse of his past.

2. Key Takeaways

1. The Unreliability of Memory as Self-Delusion

• Explanation: In my own words, this idea suggests that our memories are not objective records of the past but are subjective stories we rewrite to make ourselves feel better or to excuse our past mistakes. We "sift and sort" our history, often replacing uncomfortable truths with "self-delusions" so we can live with ourselves in old age.

• Novel Example: Paul claims he "never kept a diary," only to later "discover" or refer to notebook entries that he has repeatedly crossed out and revised. His shift from a first-person "I" to a distant, third-person "he" when discussing his most shameful moments (like leaving Susan) illustrates this psychological distancing.

• Significance: This is vital for understanding the novel because it warns the reader that the narrator is unreliable. It highlights that the "only story" we tell ourselves is often a protective fiction designed to mask our cowardice or failures.

2. Love as Inevitable Suffering (The Passion-Suffering Connection)

• Explanation: This idea posits that "passion" and "suffering" are etymologically and experientially inseparable. To give oneself "entirely" to a love affair is to invite a "real disaster," regardless of whether the love is initially happy or unhappy. Love is not a romantic "meta-narrative" but a destructive force that eventually curdles into pity and anger.

• Novel Example: Paul’s youthful, "uncorruptable" love for Susan eventually becomes a burden of "unmanageable" care as she descends into alcoholism and dementia. By the end, Paul feels no "cinematic" sentimentality, only a crude reality where he is looking for a petrol station immediately after seeing her for the last time.

• Significance: This idea is significant because it challenges traditional romantic literature. It forces the reader to look at love through a "crude" and realistic lens, focusing on the long-term "weariness" and "disaster" rather than the initial infatuation.

3. The Conflict Between Free Will and Inevitability

• Explanation: This concept deals with how we attribute the events of our lives to either our own choices (free will) or to forces beyond our control (inevitability). We often claim "free will" for our successes to feel powerful, but we blame "inevitability" for our tragedies to avoid the weight of responsibility.

• Novel Example: Paul reflects on the "mixed doubles" tennis draw that paired him with Susan as a "dice rolled out by destiny" (inevitability). However, he also describes his decision to stay with her for a decade as a "dispensation of free will," even when he was arguably just "drifted like a log" by his own repressed desires.

• Significance: This is crucial for understanding the novel’s theme of responsibility. It shows that the protagonist is struggling to reconcile his identity as a "captain" of his life with the reality that he was often a "coward" who simply ran away when things became difficult.

3. Character Analysis: Choose two characters from the novel (e.g. Paul,

Suzanne, Joan).

Paul Roberts

• Role in the Narrative: Paul is the protagonist and the sole narrator of the novel. He recounts the "only story" of his life—a significant love affair that began when he was 19 and Suzanne was 48—from the perspective of a man in his 70s.

• Key Traits and Motivations: As a young man, Paul is a university student who is initially uninterested in the social expectations of his middle-class parents. As he ages, he is characterised by a philosophical and realistic outlook on love, moving away from youthful romanticism towards a focus on suffering and responsibility. However, Paul also identifies himself as a coward; he admits to running away from physical altercations and, more significantly, abandoning Suzanne when her care became too burdensome. His primary motivation in the present is to make sense of his past through the lens of memory.

• Narrative Perspective: The reader’s understanding of Paul is deeply shaped by his unreliable, first-person memory narration. The narrative jumps across timelines (from the 1960s to the contemporary era) and shifts between first, second, and third-person perspectives, which adds complexity to his storytelling. Paul himself suggests he may be a liar, meaning the reader must constantly doubt his version of events and consider what he might be hiding or misremembering.

• Contribution to Themes: Paul is central to the theme of memory, specifically how it is used to reconstruct a life story that may not be entirely accurate. He also embodies the theme of responsibility versus self-preservation, illustrating how love can devolve from a romantic ideal into a heavy burden that leads to remorse.

Suzanne Macleod

• Role in the Narrative: Suzanne serves as the central love interest and the catalyst for Paul’s "only story". She is a married woman with two daughters who enters a decade-long relationship with the much younger Paul, eventually leaving her suburban life to live with him in London.

• Key Traits and Motivations: Suzanne is a tragic figure whose life is marked by decline. She develops a severe alcohol addiction and dementia, which leads to her eventual hospitalization and psychological breakdown. Her motivations remain somewhat opaque because she never speaks for herself in the narrative, but her history reveals a struggle with "frigidity" stemming from childhood sexual abuse by her Uncle Humphrey.

• Narrative Perspective: Because the novel is a "memory novel" told entirely by Paul, Suzanne is seen exclusively through his eyes. This creates a "one-sided" story where her internal thoughts and motivations are "untold". The reader must engage in "creative reading" to piece together Suzanne’s character from Paul’s passing remarks and the tragic evidence of her later life.

• Contribution to Themes: Suzanne represents the theme of unseen suffering and the lasting impact of trauma. Her character also highlights the tragedy of the "untold story" within a memory-driven narrative; while Paul gets to define their history, Suzanne's reality is lost to her illness and his subjective recollection.

4. Narrative Techniques: Discuss the narrative techniques employed by

Julian Barnes in The Only Story, considering:

o The use of first-person narration and its limitations.

The novel begins primarily with first-person narration, which creates an intimate focus on the protagonist Paul’s recollected history. However, this technique is inherently limited by the problematic nature of memory. Paul admits that he is not just revisiting his history but "revisioning" and "revising" it, often remembering things as he wants them to have happened rather than how they truly occurred. Because he never kept a diary during the core events, his story lacks documentary evidence, making it a purely subjective truth that the reader is encouraged to question.

o The shifting perspectives and unreliable narrator.

Barnes uses shifting perspectives to mirror Paul’s emotional journey:

• Part One: Primarily first-person, showing Paul's proximity to his younger self and his love for Susan.

• Part Two: Shifts toward second-person narration, signifying a step away from his self and his story.

• Part Three: Moves into third-person narration, representing Paul's final dissociation and distance from his love, his guilt, and his own identity.

This shifting makes Paul a classic unreliable narrator. He frequently contradicts himself; for instance, he claims early on that "most of us have only one story to tell," only to state in the same paragraph that "there are countless events which we turn into countless stories". He is a "vested teller" who may be more interested in hiding certain truths than revealing them to the reader.

o The non-linear timeline and use of flashbacks.

 It begins with Paul as a 70-year-old man looking back.

• The narrative then takes a 50-year jump into a flashback to when he was 19.

• The timeline then moves somewhat chronologically through his 20s, 30s, and 50s before returning to his present self at 70.

While the use of flashbacks is a "classical" technique, Barnes experiments with it by creating a "narrative drop" where the story is interwoven with philosophical brooding. The timeline is not just a sequence of events but a way to explore the transition from innocence to experience and infatuation to weariness.

o The impact of these techniques on the reader's experience.

Barnes employs direct address, posing philosophical questions directly to the reader, such as: "Would you rather love the more and suffer the more or love the less and suffer the less?". This involves the reader in Paul’s dilemmas and forces them to adopt a critical, doubting mindset. Because the narrator is unreliable, the reader cannot passively accept the story but must instead cross-check and "ascertain" the truth for themselves.

o How this narrative is different from other novels you may have read.

The Only Story differs from other novels in several ways:

• Scope: Unlike "bulkier" contemporary novels like Gun Island or The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, which span multiple continents and vast social issues, Barnes’s novel is intentionally "small" and intimate, focusing on a single relationship.

• Philosophical Density: In contrast to traditional storytellers like Thomas Hardy, who might add a "pinch" of philosophy to a strong story, Barnes uses the story as a "scaffold" for heavy philosophical meditation.

• The "Vantage Point": In classical traditions, an elderly narrator typically provides a "vantage point of tranquility" and wisdom. Barnes subverts this; his 70-year-old Paul is not sure of himself, lacks accuracy, and emerges from his retelling as "defeated" and "unheroic".

5. Thematic Connections: Explore the following themes and their

interconnections in The Only Story:

o Memory and Unreliability: The novel explores memory as a "private cinema", where the narrator selects and stores events in a subjective, often cinematic way. At age 70, Paul reflects on his 19-year-old self, admitting that he is an unreliable narrator who may be lying to the reader just as he lied to himself and others in the past. This subjectivity relates to narrative truth because Paul acknowledges that retrospective reordering of life is "self-serving"; he adjusts his story to protect his ego, often attributing failures to "inevitability" and successes to "free will"

o Love, Passion, and Suffering: The novel posits that love is inseparable from suffering, a connection rooted in the etymology of the word "passion," which stems from the Latin patio, meaning "to suffer". Paul describes love as a "disaster" that leads to pain regardless of whether it is happy or unhappy.

• Lacanian Ideas: This suffering is explained through the Lacanian concept of desire, which is born from a "gap" created when language fails to articulate our true needs. Humans pursue "love objects" to fill this gap, but when the object is another human being—like Susan—it inevitably leads to conflict and suffering because that person has their own desires and gaps.

o Responsibility and Cowardice: Paul is presented as both unreliable and potentially cowardly. He avoids responsibility by "handing back" Susan to her daughters when her alcoholism and dementia become unmanageable, prioritizing his own career and sanity. He struggles with whether his choices were acts of courage, cowardice, or mere inevitable drifts like a log in a river. The consequence of his choices is a life of isolation; at 70, he remains unmarried, haunted by a "wound" that he believes will only stay open until death.

o Critique of Marriage: The novel challenges the institution of marriage by depicting it as a restrictive social structure often defined by patriarchal and religious dogmas. It highlights the hypocrisy of social circles, such as the tennis club that expels members for affairs. Furthermore, it uses Susan's life—having three major "love stories" despite her marriage—to argue against the traditional narrative that love is a singular, life-defining episode for women

o Two ways to look at life: 

1. The Captain of a Paddle Steamer: This represents free will, where life is a succession of choices and the individual is in control of their "ship" on the river of life.
2. The Bump on a Log: This represents inevitability, where life is propelled by currents, hazards, and forces over which the individual has no control.

Paul concludes that life is often a mix of both, though he tends to use whichever perspective justifies his past actions at the time of telling.

6. Personal Reflection: Consider the question posed at the beginning of the

novel: "Would you rather love the more and suffer the more, or love the

less and suffer the less?".

How does the novel explore this question?

• The Fallacy of Choice: Paul, the narrator, eventually posits that this is not a "real question" because humans rarely have a choice in the matter,. He argues that if a person can actually control the intensity of their feelings or "water down" their devotion to avoid pain, then what they are experiencing isn't truly love at all,. In Paul's view, love is an external force that makes one suffer, often compared to being "drifted like a wooden log" in a river without control.

• The Inseparability of Love and Pain: The novel draws on the etymology of the word "passion," which comes from the Latin root patio, meaning "to suffer",. By this definition, to be passionate is, by default, to suffer,. The sources suggest that the modern world has disconnected these two concepts, but the novel seeks to reconnect them, presenting love as a "disaster" regardless of whether it is happy or unhappy.

• The Trajectory of "Loving More": Paul’s relationship with Susan serves as the primary case study for "loving the more",. His 19-year-old self enters the affair with an "absolutist" and "uncorruptible" view of love,,,. However, as Susan’s alcoholism and mental health decline, his "love the more" leads to extreme suffering for himself, Susan, and her family. By the end of his life, Paul describes his love not as a blissful memory, but as a "wound" that remains open until death

.

• A Critique of "Cozy Narratives": The novel challenges the "movie makers' bromide"—the sentimental idea that love leads to redemption or closure. Instead, it presents a hardcore reality where passion curdles into a mixture of pity and anger, and the only true closure is death.

What are your thoughts on this question, and how does this novel

relate to your own experiences and views on love and life?

The novel suggests that the question is flawed because true love cannot be controlled or limited to avoid pain. Through Paul’s relationship with Susan, it shows that loving deeply inevitably brings suffering, but that suffering is not redemptive or comforting. Love and pain are presented as inseparable, challenging modern ideas of love as safe or healing. Overall, the novel argues that to love at all is to accept vulnerability, without any guarantee of happiness or closure.

7. Creative Response:

• Imagine you are one of the characters from the novel (other than Paul).

Write a journal entry from their perspective reflecting on the events of the

novel.

Imagine you are one of the characters from the novel (other than Paul).

Write a journal entry from their perspective reflecting on the events of the

Susan : I can feel how much Paul loves me, and sometimes that love feels heavier than the illness itself. I wanted to be worthy of it, but wanting has never been enough to make me well. Everyone keeps hoping love will save me, yet I am still myself—fragile, frightened, and failing more often than I succeed. I see now that love doesn’t rescue; it only reveals how broken things already are. And knowing that hurts almost as much as being loved so fiercely.

• Alternatively, write a short piece exploring how one of the themes in the

novel relates to contemporary society

In The Only Story, the theme of passion and suffering challenges contemporary society’s sanitized view of love, which often prioritizes intense desire over the reality of pain. While modern culture focuses on "euphoric love sentiments" found in song lyrics and films, the sources remind us that the word passion is rooted in the Latin patio, meaning "to suffer". Paul critiques "movie makers' bromides" that offer neat resolutions like redemption and closure, arguing instead that every love—whether happy or unhappy—is a "real disaster" when one gives themselves over to it entirely. Furthermore, the novel disrupts the modern narrative of absolute free will by presenting life as an oscillation between being the "captain" of one’s ship and a "bump on a log" drifted by uncontrollable currents. This suggests that contemporary society’s attempt to decouple passion from its inherent suffering ignores the "brute chronological fact" that love often curdles into a mixture of pity and anger.